Of course I couldn't miss to get the Italian DVD version of BBM, which was released at the end of August, so yesterday got my copy.
I would say the contents of the DVD complement those of the UK release. In that one I found it crazy they hadn't included the trailers and TV spots, while in this version you get them in both Italian and International versions. And above all are two nice "exclusiive" interviews with Ang and Jake, taken during the Venice Film 2005 festival in cooperation with Coming Soon Television (Coming Soon is the Italian TV Channel devoted to Cinema).
Each of the interviews lasts 7/8 minutes and both appear to have been taken in an informal setting (apparently in the garden of a hotel) with the guests being very much laidback and relaxed.
Ang details the movie and story with his usual oriental calm, depicting Ennis and Jack as two different faces of the West: the earlier being the traditional one, afraid of leaving the defined road, the latter the innovative one, willing to face the future despite any difficulty that could come your way due to your life choices.
Jake (funnily continuing to scratch himself during the interview as if he was being assaulted by an army of fleas!) underlined Jack's correct final rebellion to his masculinity being questioned during the Thanksgiving dinner. It's a very nice interview, with Jake finally pointing to the futility of questioning the sexuality of any human being, when the whole trick should not be who you are in love with. He underlined how the difficult thing lies in the fact of simply loving somebody else. It seems to me this is the theme he has taken most seriously, as he remarked in his (very similar though much shorter) heartfelt speech during the Ceremony at the MTV Movie Awards in June.
Finally, and yet more funnily, does he usually use the intercalating phrase "you know" as he did in this interview? I'd like to count how many times he used that in those 7/8 minutes, but I guess no less than 50 times...
Ciao for now, and if you get a chance, buy it (available on line at
www.fnac.it for ca. 14.00 EUR).
Luigi
